In a variety of industries, such as the utility and telecommunications industries, companies providing service to customers in the field (i.e., at the customer's physical location) must manage the way in which customer service appointments are booked or scheduled. Efficient scheduling of customer service orders, which include the appointment time and the type of service being provided, allows the company to offer convenient appointments to customers, make quality commitments in regard to these appointments, and reduce costs associated with performing the services being provided. FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional order scheduling system 100 in which a company 102 provides service to a number of customers C1-C3 located in a geographic region 104 being serviced by the company. Typically, the geographic region 104 is divided into a number of areas AREA1-AREA3 and one or more field service representatives FSR1-FSR3 are assigned to perform service in each area.
To obtain service, the customers C1-C3 contact customer service representatives CSR1-CSR3 of the company 102 over respective communications links 106-110, which are typically conventional telephone lines but may also be other suitable communications links. In response to being contacted, the corresponding customer service representative CSR1-CSR3 accesses a scheduling program 114 on a computer system 112 and generates a work order to schedule the requested service. The work order includes the type of service to be performed and the appointment time for performing the service.
In generating the work order, the customer service representative CSR1-CSR3 inputs the type of work to be performed and the requested day of service into the scheduling program 114. From this input, the program 114 determines the job duration, which is the time required to provide the requested service. The scheduling program 114 then determines what appointment times are available on the day for which service is requested. Appointment times are typically defined by dividing a day into a number of appointment windows AW, each window being a time during which an appointment may be scheduled. FIG. 1 illustrates an example day having four appointment windows AW1-AW4 of one, two, two, and four hours, respectively. The scheduling program 114 identifies the available appointment windows AW1-AW4 on the requested day of service and then schedules the work order in one or more available windows, depending on the job duration and the duration of the available windows. For example, if the job duration JD is five hours and time windows AW1-AW3 are available on the requested day, the program 114 schedules the work order in these windows.
The process of scheduling work orders executed by the scheduling program 114 is nontrivial if the company wants to optimally utilize it resources in servicing its customers. Variables such as the skill levels of individual field service representatives FSR1-FSR3, break times of the representatives, the need to give priority to certain work orders, and numerous other factors make it difficult for a company to rely on scheduling work orders using conventional scheduling programs 114. One particular factor that results in the inefficient use of corporate resources occurs when “splittable orders” are involved. A splittable order is a work order that may be split over several days in performing the requested service even if, for example, the total job duration is less than the number of service hours available in a given day. Splittable orders allow service to be provided in segments over multiple days and many times allow earlier completion of a job than would be possible if scheduling of the order is delayed until a day is available on which the job may be completed in its entirety. An example of a splittable order is the routing of an underground cable between two buildings. To perform this work, a trench may be dug on a first day, the cable routed a second day, and the cable covered on a third day.
Conventional scheduling programs 114 process splittable orders in the same way as nonsplittable orders, which are orders that must be started and completed on the same day. In other words, the program 114 identifies a day having sufficient available appointment windows AW and schedules the order in such windows on the identified day. Scheduling splittable orders in this way can result in the inefficient use of company resources and delay providing requested services to customers. For example, if a splittable order has a total job duration SJD (see FIG. 1) of five hours and only appointment window AW4 is available on the requested day, the scheduling program 114 will notify the customer service representative CSR1-CSR3 that the order cannot be scheduled on the requested day and may suggest another day on which sufficient appointment windows are available. As a result, the window AW4 on the requested day may not be utilized to provide service to a customer, thus resulting in wasted time and revenues for the company. Moreover, delaying scheduling of the order until a day on which the order can be completed may delay providing the service to the customer, potentially causing customer dissatisfaction due the company's inability to complete the requested work until a later date.
There is a need for a computer system and method for enhancing the efficiency of the scheduling process to allow a company to efficiently utilize its resources while meeting customer expectations.